'SAHMS' that have full time childcare or help - a fantastic liberation or downright lazy?

[Enid]

There are lots of mothers down here in Dorset who are (or whose husbands are) well off enough to afford NOT to work. I know a few and they all have full time aupairs or nannies. One of them has TWO nannies - one for each of her children.

It seems to be a matter of pride that you always take the nanny/au pair on holiday to help with your children. Also that the nanny/au pair takes the children to clubs and activities.

OK - I think it is outrageously lazy (and so does dh). What do you think?

To buy yourself some time off when you can't be arsed and you want to go swimming!

god i would LOVE a cleaner

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I think if I were a SAHM, I'd be more palatable to my children if I had a couplr of mornings off

oh god SAVE me from swimming...

anyway they have a lovely creche where I go swimming

I think I would have a housekeeper if I were rich enough (and a gardener etc) Bearing in ind my house would be much larger. I wouldn't want my kids at boarding school, so I would take them, but Iwould have someone to do all my cleaning etc.

I am now joining the club of the inner millionare

Hmm. I think it's the WOHM who have nannies, who have already crossed any number of unspeakable boundaries - working full-time, employing staff and permitting another woman to rummage around in their cupboards and decide what to give their children for tea - who seem to find it easiest to imagine leaving the house in the morning, waving a cheery goodbye to the little darlings now in the tender care of Mary Poppins #2, catching the 7.40am for Waterloo and instead of trudging to the office for an endless day of dull conference calls and demanding clients, skipping across to the South Bank to take in some mind-broadening culture, a few designer shops and a light lunch before returning in time to pick up their little ones from school.

Perhaps that's the answer. Employ a nanny and pretend to have a part-time job. That way you would avoid the moral censure of Nailpolish, Cod wouldn't call you a 'poof', Enid would refrain from sneering silently at you and you could still have a fabulous lunch at Harvey Nicks with MI, PPH, Anchovy, Earlybird, Blu and Caligula.

well where DD goes swimming
for me it is more like paddling
I try not to get wet at all if I can possibly help it
anyway a nanny might say, why are you typing into the computer standing up like that with a nappy in your hand??

my mn habit would be horribly exposed

er excuse me, thats a bit harsh

lockets if you are a control freak then so am i . i couldnt cope with things moving and i couldnt find them . the thought of my children coming out with " look what i learn today " " look what --- taught me to do " my house is mine mine mine and i dont want to share my space or my children with anyone (apart from dp of course )

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my swimming pool has a creche too but im a bit wary of it

was that to me np?

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muma3 - you just managed to remember dp there! lol!

Not quite in the same league, but I am a SAHM and DD (3) is in nursery for two days a week. She loves it - wakes up every morning and asks if she can go to nursery - and I spend some of the time doing the boring house stuff so I dont have to do it with the kids around, and when I pick DS2 up from school we get an hour to ourselves which he loves. Yes, it does mean that I can go swimming by myself sometimes, or meet a friend for lunch/coffee which in my view saves my sanity and makes me a better mum for my kids. I did choose childcare over having a cleaner as I couldn't really justify both, and it really works for us.

A brilliant idea issymum. One could run up a pretend salary on credit cards and ahve life of bliss for, say, a year before going to debtors' prison.

no sorry it was to issymum, hcc

I suspect a lot of the women who don't work and have nannies are just carrying on as they did before they had kids - I bet they didn't have jobs then, anyway. So they're just carrying on with the same lives.

Much as those of us who worked full-time, now either work full-time as parents, one way or another, or work full-time outside the house, or do a mix of the two.

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they are either urine ridden or burn your eyeballs off with the chlorine

ds got his molluscum from the pool (am convinced)

we still go every week though

i bloody gave birth to them and went through the pain of mastitis when feeding so i am damned if i will then let someone else get the benefits and experience all the good points of my gorgeous darling children .
grrrrr keep away snarl snarl

Thing is I'm not sure I am the best person at entertaining my children.
Playdoh, puzzles, painting and all that stuff bore me rigid. I try to get excited about making a worm from playdoh but I can only sustain that for about 2 minutes before I can feel a gnawing sensation that the dishwasher needs to be emptied or the plants watered or the 1,000 things to be done other than find the middle piece for the winnie the pooh puzzle AGAIN!!!!
I know that I love my children & have their long-term best interests at heart but I don't think that makes me a very good play mate!

"I suspect a lot of the women who don't work and have nannies are just carrying on as they did before they had kids - I bet they didn't have jobs then, anyway"

Yes, that's probably true. I can't imagine someone getting pregnant, giving up their full-time job when the baby is born and then employing a nanny to look after the baby fulltime. If someone is used to working full-time, it would be a strange thing to do .

Enid - what's the history of the Dorset nanny-users that you know?